Fire fighting is a difficult and tiring process. In addition to the physical and mental strain inflicted upon the fire fighters, there is a heavy toll taken on the equipment they use to control and extinguish fires. Given the importance of the equipment to the safety of the firefighters, and of the public, it is important that the equipment be well maintained to ensure continued functionality.
One particularly important piece of equipment is the fire hose. After each use, the hose must be properly cleaned to ensure longevity and continued performance. Cleaning the fire hose manually requires a number of steps. Typically, one or more firefighters unroll the hose at the fire house, lay it flat on the ground and then rinse it with water. The fire fighter must then repeatedly brush the hose with a broom to remove surface contaminants, before rinsing it a second time. The hose is then flipped over and the process is repeated on the other side. For a particularly dirty hose, detergent, such as gear and hose detergent, may be used to improve the cleaning.
While there are machines for drawing a fire hose through a series of brushes, these prior art devices such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 589,559 of Sep. 7, 1897, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,502,175 of Mar. 5, 1985, are complicated, susceptible to breakdown and maintenance issues and are often too expensive to be purchased by many fire stations, particularly volunteer fire departments which are still the first responders in many small towns and rural areas.
Thus, many fire departments must use the broom method for cleaning fire hoses, a time consuming task, and a particularly unwelcome one after hours of battling a fire.